Hard News

We met with the doctors at Dana-Farber yesterday. Unfortunately, her tumor's size, combined with its location, makes radiation therapy a non-starter. The resultant damage to surrounding tissue would be too great.

We've also exhausted the conventional treatments for PPB. Which means we are now into the more "fingers crossed" types of treatments.

We're starting on Monday with a re-visit to the Etoposide/Ifosfamide treatment she had after the surgery date was canceled in December. That combo actually halted the growth of the tumor. So hopefully we will get a similar result.

There is another treatment called Anti-angiogenesis, which targets the blood supply to the tumor. This would be a combo of low-dose etoposide on a regular basis combined with Celebrex. Yes, it's originally an arthritis drug that got some bad press because of related drugs like it that were causing heart attacks in elderly people. But Celebrex survived, in part because it has shown some promise in cancer treatment in combination with chemotherapy.

And then there are the "Phase I" trials, where a patient is given a new treatment to find out how safe it is and to find the best dose for future studies.

Beth and I decided to pursue the chemo options while also making Elle available for the Phase I trials. Basically, we are leaving no stone unturned.

It was hard to get that news yesterday. You are in a weird place when you are disappointed that the doctors don't want to irradiate your daughter's chest. But I still believe that Elle is going to beat this thing. I can't see another outcome. She is just too damned stubborn.